Multidonor surface energy transfer from Alexa Fluor dyes to gold nanoparticles: a quest for innovative sensor applications

Abstract. We report energy transfer (ET) from two dyes: Alexa Fluor 514 (AF514) and Alexa Fluor 532 (AF532) to gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) of three different sizes (10, 30, and 53 nm) employing steady-state and time-resolved fluorescence measurements. The results show that the fluorescence intensity and fluorescence lifetimes of donor (D) molecules AF514 and AF532 decrease with increase in the concentration of acceptor (A) AuNPs (2 to 10  μM) upon interaction with AuNPs, thereby confirming the occurrence of ET between D and A. This clearly suggests that these two Alexa Fluor molecules act as efficient donors and AuNPs as excellent acceptors. Interestingly, the Forster distance (Ro) determined for these dyes varies from 212 to 550 Å with increasing size of AuNPs and suggests that the ET from AF514 and AF532 to AuNPs is essentially obeying surface energy transfer (SET) process following 1  /  d4 distance dependence. As is well known, Forster resonance energy transfer is efficient for separation distances of up to 100 Å, beyond which its efficiency decreases. Thus, the present results follow dipole-surface type ET from molecule dipole (AF514 and AF532) to nanometal (Au) surface. The influence of size and distance on the SET from AF514 and AF532 to AuNPs is discussed. Further, the quenching of donor fluorescence in the presence of AuNPs and nonradiative ET are analyzed using Stern–Volmer plots. Our study is an experimental quest to explore the potential of such dye–noble metal NPs pairs performing as sensitive chemical and biosensors.

[1]  J. Wayment,et al.  Controlling binding site densities on glass surfaces. , 2006, Analytical chemistry.

[2]  T. Sen,et al.  Surface energy transfer from rhodamine 6G to gold nanoparticles: A spectroscopic ruler , 2007 .

[3]  Abraham Nitzan,et al.  Photophysics and photochemistry near surfaces and small particles , 1985 .

[4]  Taekjip Ha,et al.  Surfaces and orientations: much to FRET about? , 2004, Accounts of chemical research.

[5]  K. Kern,et al.  C 60 Exciton Quenching near Metal Surfaces , 1997 .

[6]  W. R. Algar,et al.  Self-Quenching, Dimerization, and Homo-FRET in Hetero-FRET Assemblies with Quantum Dot Donors and Multiple Dye Acceptors , 2016 .

[7]  L. Hornak,et al.  Size-Dependent Energy Transfer between CdSe/ZnS Quantum Dots and Gold Nanoparticles , 2011 .

[8]  A. Libchaber,et al.  Single-mismatch detection using gold-quenched fluorescent oligonucleotides , 2001, Nature Biotechnology.

[9]  I. M. Khazi,et al.  Solvatochromism of a highly conjugated novel donor-π-acceptor dipolar fluorescent probe and its application in surface-energy transfer with gold nanoparticles , 2018, Journal of Molecular Liquids.

[10]  F. Brockman,et al.  Alexa fluor-labeled fluorescent cellulose nanocrystals for bioimaging solid cellulose in spatially structured microenvironments. , 2015, Bioconjugate chemistry.

[11]  T. Majima,et al.  Probing the charge-transfer dynamics in DNA at the single-molecule level. , 2011, Journal of the American Chemical Society.

[12]  Elizabeth M. Nolan,et al.  Tools and tactics for the optical detection of mercuric ion. , 2008, Chemical reviews.

[13]  D. Reinhoudt,et al.  Fluorescence quenching of dye molecules near gold nanoparticles: radiative and nonradiative effects. , 2002, Physical review letters.

[14]  Jian Zhang,et al.  Enhanced fluorescence images for labeled cells on silver island films. , 2008, Langmuir : the ACS journal of surfaces and colloids.

[15]  N O Reich,et al.  Nanometal surface energy transfer in optical rulers, breaking the FRET barrier. , 2005, Journal of the American Chemical Society.

[16]  Amitava Patra,et al.  Recent Advances in Energy Transfer Processes in Gold-Nanoparticle-Based Assemblies , 2012 .

[17]  Miho Suzuki,et al.  Simple and tunable Förster resonance energy transfer-based bioprobes for high-throughput monitoring of caspase-3 activation in living cells by using flow cytometry. , 2012, Biochimica et biophysica acta.

[18]  B. Persson,et al.  Electron-hole-pair quenching of excited states near a metal , 1982 .

[19]  F. Stellacci,et al.  Shape-controlled growth of micrometer-sized gold crystals by a slow reduction method. , 2006, Small.

[20]  Christian Eggeling,et al.  Fluorescence intensity and lifetime distribution analysis: toward higher accuracy in fluorescence fluctuation spectroscopy. , 2002, Biophysical journal.

[21]  R. Silbey,et al.  Molecular Fluorescence and Energy Transfer Near Interfaces , 2007 .

[22]  M. G. Kotresh,et al.  Spectroscopic investigation of alloyed quantum dot-based FRET to cresyl violet dye. , 2016, Luminescence : the journal of biological and chemical luminescence.

[23]  Edward S Yeung,et al.  Quantitative screening of single copies of human papilloma viral DNA without amplification. , 2006, Analytical chemistry.

[24]  H. Demir,et al.  Highly efficient nonradiative energy transfer using charged CdSe/ZnS nanocrystals for light-harvesting in solution , 2009 .

[25]  H. Mattoussi,et al.  Self-Assembled Gold Nanoparticle-Fluorescent Protein Conjugates as Platforms for Sensing Thiolate Compounds via Modulation of Energy Transfer Quenching. , 2017, Bioconjugate chemistry.

[26]  Surajit Ghosh,et al.  Pluronic Micellar Aggregates Loaded with Gold Nanoparticles (Au NPs) and Fluorescent Dyes: A Study of Controlled Nanometal Surface Energy Transfer , 2012 .

[27]  T. Sen,et al.  Interaction of Gold Nanoparticle with Human Serum Albumin (HSA) Protein Using Surface Energy Transfer , 2011 .

[28]  M. Singh,et al.  Fluorescent lifetime quenching near d = 1.5 nm gold nanoparticles: probing NSET validity. , 2006, Journal of the American Chemical Society.

[29]  Tsutomu Kikuchi,et al.  Analysis system and method , 2002 .

[30]  Kai Jiang,et al.  Fabrication of protein-conjugated silver sulfide nanorods in the bovine serum albumin solution. , 2006, The journal of physical chemistry. B.

[31]  F. Bestvater,et al.  Two‐photon fluorescence absorption and emission spectra of dyes relevant for cell imaging , 2002, Journal of microscopy.

[32]  Paresh Chandra Ray,et al.  Gold nanoparticle based FRET assay for the detection of DNA cleavage. , 2006, The journal of physical chemistry. B.

[33]  Michael Wahl,et al.  Time-Correlated Single Photon Counting , 2009 .

[34]  Ulrich Wiesner,et al.  Plasmonic dye-sensitized solar cells using core-shell metal-insulator nanoparticles. , 2011, Nano letters.

[35]  P. Hänninen,et al.  Nonspecific particle-based method with two-photon excitation detection for sensitive protein quantification and cell counting. , 2013, Analytical chemistry.

[36]  A. Samanta,et al.  Photoinduced electron transfer reaction in room temperature ionic liquids: a combined laser flash photolysis and fluorescence study. , 2007, The journal of physical chemistry. B.

[37]  Paresh Chandra Ray,et al.  Size- and distance-dependent nanoparticle surface-energy transfer (NSET) method for selective sensing of hepatitis C virus RNA. , 2009, Chemistry.

[38]  M. G. Kotresh,et al.  Systematically controlled fluorescence resonance energy transfer from cadmium telluride quantum dots to rhodamine 101 dye: steady-state versus time-resolved measurements , 2019, Journal of Nanophotonics.

[39]  D. T. Yue,et al.  Robust approaches to quantitative ratiometric FRET imaging of CFP/YFP fluorophores under confocal microscopy , 2009, Journal of microscopy.

[40]  N. Chattopadhyay,et al.  Gold Nanoparticles: Acceptors for Efficient Energy Transfer from the Photoexcited Fluorophores , 2013 .

[41]  Quantum dot-based multidonor concentric FRET system and its application to biosensing using an excitation ratio. , 2014, Langmuir : the ACS journal of surfaces and colloids.